Mary Ann
by vittoria del sottaceto
Summary: "I'm feeling hunted down. He is mine and this time you won't find your way in." AU/AH e3b


**"Mary Ann"**

First ever song-fic. I'm not usually a fan of these, but there's something about this song that just cries out to me. I suggest you give it a listen. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Music and lyrics belong to the genius of Meg & Dia. Any recognizable characters are property of Stephenie Meyer.

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><p><em><strong>She's got tiger eyes and they're floating across the room.<br>But they stop on you and they don't move away.  
>She's got lips like razor blades that shine like moons.<br>Born in Tennessee, she's got it out for me.**_

It figures. It's the first time in months that everyone has been able to come out and she shows up. She's absolutely gorgeous. Her hair is down in loose, golden curls. Her makeup is flawless. It makes her skin look like porcelain. Her blue eyes are excited for what the night may bring her. My heart rate picks up as I look at her from my corner of the room. She looks just like she did before.

I hate her. My fists clench under the table as she scans the dark room.

She's assessing the crowd with a slight smirk on her beautiful face. I've seen her in action before. She's looking for her next conquest, her next break up, her next -

"Bella," Alice's sweet voice fights to combat the noise in the room. I feel her little hand on my arm and give her my attention.

"What's wrong?" At her question, I glance back towards the door where I had just seen Mary Ann enter. When Alice's hand grips my arm tighter I know that she's seen her as well. I wasn't the only one she had affected after all.

But it won't happen again. Not this time. He's far too important to me.

_**Mary Ann, won't you step away from me for a while?  
>I'm feeling hunted down.<br>He is mine and this time you won't find your way in.  
>Mary Ann, won't you step away from me for a while?<br>Mary Ann, won't you step away from me for a while?**_

"Sweetheart, we don't have to stay. We can go if you're tired," Edwards' worried face came into view.

What? No. He's having fun. _She_ wouldn't end his fun because she was too busy spacing out.

"No! No. I'm sorry. I just spaced," I tried to chuckle but I don't think it was too believable. "I'm fine. Really. Let's stay a little longer," I smiled at my Edward. I just needed a brief pep talk. I can do this. That would just need to be my mantra for a couple of hours.

I can do this.

"Jazz and I are going to the bar, do you want anything?" I did. I wanted something strong. Something that burns on the way down. Preferably lots of it.

I smiled, for real, silently thanking him for the offer, but I shook my head. If I was going to deal with trash tonight, I wanted to be lucid. He kissed my cheek and told me he'd be right back. I watched as his long legs took him away from me and he caught up with Jasper. They laughed together and I felt myself smile again.

God, I love him.

I felt bad that we hadn't been able to come out more often. Everything has been so crazy lately. But we were out, now, and that's what mattered.

Alice and I tried to distract each other with our current news. She had just been accepted into the graduate design school on campus. She and Jasper had just hit their 2 year mark and she was expecting a proposal "soonish". She just about swooned when she told me what he did for their anniversary. Her face even blushed as she got lost in her own mind thinking about their night.

I was just promoted to at a bakery down the street. I'm hoping to build enough skill to have my own once the economy bounces back. I loved it, but my hours were early and I'm normally in bed by 9 every night. I was out way past my bedtime.

Oh, and I had just moved in with Edward.

Our official story was that I had moved in to help out with rent while he was interning and with feeding his new shelter mutt, Jake. The beast needed walks and Edward couldn't give him a consistent schedule, but I could. Of course, that story was just for the parents. We would tell them soon, but we wanted to wait. I've known him for a couple of years, but we had only really been together for about three months. We both originally felt that it was too fast but when he asked, I couldn't say no. Alice and Jasper knew the truth, of course. Edward doesn't keep anything from his cousin. Alice apparently sees the future (Jasper swears he didn't tell her).

_Just a little over three weeks ago, Edward showed up at my apartment after 1 am. He looked like a hot mess. He'd been having a hard time sleeping the last couple of nights and it was starting to show. I had assumed it was due to his internship or the crazy hours he was keeping. He was overly quiet as we sat on my couch. His eyes were closed, his head rested on the back cushions, and he was silent. It unnerved me. Normally, Edward was the talker between us and now he was giving me nothing. I kept asking questions, trying to get him to respond. _

"_What's going on? … Did something happen? … Do you want a drink? … Is everything okay? … Is everyone okay? … Is there anything I can do? … Have you been drinking? … Do you need a ride home? … Do you want to sleep on the couch?" He put two fingers on my lips and effectively shut me up._

"_Move in with me," he whispered._

I felt eyes on me. I looked away from Alice, loosing my focus on what she was telling me.

Mary Ann was staring from near the bar. Her face lit up in recognition at the sight of me, but when she glanced at Alice, nothing. Mary Ann didn't recognize Alice, but Alice sure as hell knew her. Her light eyes returned to me and she smirked as she nodded as if to say hello.

She had known, I had come to find out. She had known all that time and just played the both of us for her own entertainment.

She quickly lost interest in the two of us and continued looking from person to person. She stayed where she was, having a perfect view of the whole place from against her section of wall. Suddenly, her features adjusted into something I remembered. Something I never wanted to see again.

I followed her eyes to see who she was leering at; praying to whatever god would hear my plea, that it wasn't Edward or Jasper.

But, of course, the gods enjoy making things interesting. She was making her move.

_**Now I've seen that look of yours two years ago.  
>It's all a game to you but now I can play it too.<br>Hard as hell to find a good man and I, I gave him all of me.  
>You won't take him that easy.<strong>_

_Two years ago, right as Jasper and Alice had been getting together for the first time, I was falling apart. _

_I had been with Riley since sophomore year in high school. After 4+ years, we were just about juniors at Arizona State University. We had survived his thoughts of rushing for fraternities, my mothers' daftness, his younger brothers' diagnosis, and my freshman roommates' sexcapades. I thought we could get through anything. So on Riley's 21__st__ birthday, I trusted him implicitly. He was heading out for a night on Mill with two of his suite-mates and, since I still had a little over a month before I was 21, we had plans for afterwards._

_But he didn't show up. Which was fine. I knew going into it that there was a chance he would be having a good time with the guys, he'd get drunk, and get sick._

_That's standard 21 year old stuff, right?_

_Being the caring girlfriend that I was, I got together a care package for Riley. I figured he'd be hung over, sick, and probably sleeping on the bathroom floor. I hadn't planned on staying, just long enough to make sure he was safe and had some water and Advil by his bed when he was ready for it._

_When I got over to Vista, one of his roommates let me in the suite. I asked him how the night went and he mentioned that it was too bright and shuffled back into his dark room, grumbling about "adios" the whole way. I laughed quietly to myself and started to get a glass of water ready for Riley when his door cracked open and a slight girl immerged._

_And there she was in all her walk-of-shame glory. She looked impeccable._

"_Oh, hi!" She said, with a slight twang and a big smile. Too big for so early. Too big for right now. "I didn't know any girls lived here? Is that even allowed?" No. It wasn't. My mind registered the answers, but my mouth remained shut as my eyes drilled into the girl who had just walked out of my boyfriends' bedroom._

_I hated her._

"_Oh! Maybe it's a secret. I won't tell, trust me! I'm great at keepin' secrets," Yea. I'll bet you are. Bitch._

"_I'm Mary Ann. You look awful familiar," she kept talking to me. Why did she keep talking? "Do we have a class together?"_

"_Bella?" Riley's nervous voice shook from behind her. _

"_No," I finally responded as my eyes shifted from Mary Ann's blue questioning gaze to drill into Riley's tired brown ones. "We don't."_

It's horrible, really, how cliché the end of our relationship was. But that was that and it was done.

_**Mary Ann, won't you step away from me for a while?  
>I'm feeling hunted down.<br>He is mine and this time you won't find your way in.  
>Mary Ann, won't you step away from me for a while?<br>Mary Ann, won't you step away from me for a while?**_

She's found her prey. But her prey is mine. I shift in my seat, uncomfortable and once again unsure.

I had grown in the last two years. Edward has helped me be more confident in myself.

I met him shortly after my breakup with Riley. We were in a Shakespeare break-out class together. He said beautiful things about Much Ado About Nothing and the complexities of the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick. I ripped him apart for being so naïve about love. We started debating and I may or may not have called him a dick and a cuckold. After class, he chased me down and asked me to lunch. When I told him to go to hell, he just smiled and said he'd see me next class.

Edward was unrelenting. Once he decided something, there was no changing his mind.

He eventually got me to go to lunch with him.

Then he got me to be friends with him. We would debate movies and books. He would normally take the side of the hopeless, love-crazed romantic while I felt more comfortable with the spinster point of view.

Outside of our debates, he was careful with me. Careful, but talkative. He wanted to know everything. I told him just about anything he could ever want to know and in return, he talked more than I could imagine. I had slipped once and mentioned something about Riley in passing and I tensed, waiting for an onslaught of new questions. That was something we hadn't talked about. Something I wouldn't talk about. Instead, he just changed the subject and continued to yammer on everything and nothing.

Spring of my senior year, he forced me to watch Moulin Rouge. When he saw I didn't cry at the end, he joked with tears in his own eyes, that I was heartless. When I started crying, the dam broke and I told him everything.

He sat and held me quietly as I garbled broken words at him. I sobbed and he held me. I raged and he held me. I shook and he held me.

After that day, we didn't tiptoe around Riley. I was free of him. I felt new. The new Bella could fight back. The new Bella could be happy again.

Edward asked me out, for real, a week later. He was nervous. He joked later that he hadn't known how to deal with me when I wasn't "all cynical and mean anymore". He also joked that he had planned to kiss the mean right out of me and that I had taken it away from him. He said I owed him some mean.

Don't worry. He's since been paid back in full.

But now, with Mary Ann so close to my Edward, I was back to the first weeks after Riley. The fight was gone._**  
><strong>__  
><em>_**You walk to him. Pull up your skirt to sit down.  
>Whisper in his ear. It comes so naturally.<strong>_

It's happening again. I'm going to lose him. It's going to happen while I'm here.

Where is Jasper? Why isn't he there next to him? He would stop this.

Alice would make him.

My palms sweat. Suddenly, it's far too loud in here. There are too many people. My stomach turns and flops.

Jesus, I can't just sit here and watch. I start to get up, though I'm not sure if it's to go to the bathroom and vomit or march straight up to Mary Ann and shank her.

Edward. Please don't.

_**The music's loud, but I still hear his voice.  
>The words I won't forget so loud and clear.<br>**_

I see his eyebrows furrow together. There's no doubt that she's said something witty. Or uber sexy.

Oh, god. What if he's turned on by her? What if he wants to leave with her? What if he wants to go with her but feels like he can't because he's with me?

Which would be worse?

I can't handle this.

His neck twists and he sees Mary Ann for the first time. After a split second, a glimmer of something crosses his face.

He recognizes her. He's heard all about her because he's heard all of my insecurities. He sees her crisp blue eyes and hair the color of corn silk and he knows.

He stands from his barstool and he towers over her. She looks up at him and her hand slithers towards his chest. She says something and he grabs her small hands in his large ones and puts them on the bar, shaking his head no.

The both of them look over at our table, at me, before returning back to each other. His face is annoyed.

Why? Because he's with me? Because he knows I'm watching?

Her own perfectly arched eyebrows scrunch together and her voice gets louder, though I can't make out her words. He kind of laughs at what she says before starting to turn around to walk towards me.

She follows him and they're getting closer. He's almost back to me, but she's right behind him.

The bar has gotten quiet. It's almost closing time.

"Come on, darlin', we both know she's dull," her southern accent calls out, loud enough for me and those left in the bar to hear. I hear Alice gasp next to me. Edward stops mid-stride and I see his jaw clench.

He's angry.

_**His words so loud and clear, he says:  
>Mary Ann, won't you leave me alone for a while?<br>Can't you see that lady sitting there?  
>Well she is the only one that makes me crazy.<br>Mary Ann, won't you leave me alone for a while?  
>I see your beauty. Mary Ann, there's only one girl here that I want truly.<br>Mary Ann, won't you leave me alone for a while, alone for a while?  
>Mary Ann, won't you leave me alone for a while, alone for a while?<strong>_

"Come on, sweet girl," he says to me as he grabs my hand in his and shows me the crooked smile that I love.

To me and not to her.

"Let's go home. You owe me some mean."

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><p>The song Mary Ann can be found here: http :  / megdia . bandcamp . com / album / cocoon (along with other!). They are delightful and absolutely worth looking into.

ich liebe dich.


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